PROGRAM GIVES STUDENT FIRST-PLACE

When the buses finally stopped on the University of Florida campus, most students went looking for T-shirts.

Llewellyn Clarke wanted to find the gym. He needed to examine the floor.

If it was not identical to the gym floor at Dillard High School, Clarke would have to adjust his mousetrap car's design.

The university's gym floor was a little too slippery; he needed more traction. So Clarke added more weight to his car, and the adjustment paid off in a very big way.

Clarke won first place in Florida's 1988 South Eastern Consortium for Minorities in Engineering (SECME) Olympiad.

The consortium is a pre-college program for students interested in math, science or technology. It targets students who show a potential in math and science but are not necessarily meeting their potential.

The minority engineering program is popular in several schools in Palm Beach County, including Carver Middle School, Omni Middle School, Atlantic High School and Olympic Heights High School.

Although Clarke has since graduated from Dillard and Florida Atlantic University and has become an engineer, he is still active in SECME. He knows what it can do.

"I never thought I was going to be an engineer," said Clarke, an electrical engineer at Motorola in Plantation.

"SECME has been a role model for me," he said. "I never had anyone in my family who was an engineer. I never had anyone in my family who graduated from college or even went to college. I just believed in [the program) when they told me if you're good in mathematics, you can do it."

Clarke, 25, was born in Jamaica. He came to Dillard as a freshman, but by his sophomore year, his interest in school had dwindled. "I didn't really know what I wanted to do," he said. "For a time I had just stopped going to school."

Clarke started cutting classes, missing days at a time. He got a job busing tables at a Fort Lauderdale restaurant. He hung out with his friends. But one day, during a "visit" to school, things changed.

"He heard an announcement on the P.A. about SECME," said Joanne Boggus, Dillard's SECME coordinator when Clarke was a student. "He didn't have the overall G.P.A. he needed to participate, but his math was good."

Clarke says his disinterest in school was more apathy than rebellion. The program, he said, helped him change disinterest into determination.

"I learned that you could take anything and derive something mathematical from it," Clarke said. "I knew I was good at mathematics, at trig. And [Boggus) said that since I was good at math, it would be easy to be an engineer."

Fortunately for Clarke, the program looks beyond the Aand B student. Its philosophy: if a student is capable of earning a C in algebra, a student is capable of learning engineering work.

"He had an opportunity, I would say that that's what SECME provided him more than anything else," said Boggus. "Llewellyn provided his natural drive and ability."

There are 20,000 SECME students in 60 school systems. Some 85 percent of the participating high school graduates plan to enroll in college, and of these, 46 percent plan to enter engineering, science or math-based majors, according to Dr. Sharon Schlossberg, director of pre-college programs at FAU.

"I think SECME really does de-mystify the whole thing," Boggus said. "For one thing, it gets kids on a college campus. We can visualize ourselves places once we've been there. I think a lot of kids don't visualize themselves in college because their families haven't been there. They think this is something for someone else, not for me."

Omni is one of the schools with a SECME mind-set. Omni, a participant in the program for three years, sent 10 students to the June 28-30 national competition at the University of South Alabama in Mobile.

Omni, which was among 16 middle schools competing nationally, placed second in the mousetrap car competition. It was good, but for some, not good enough.

"I was pretty disappointed," said Jordan Chin, 14. "Our car design was a lot better than all the other states, but it just so happens that there were complications on the surface we had to run our cars on. So our car didn't run up to par."

Clarke agrees that Omni's design was superior, but the students failed to adjust to the change in the competitive surface. "We'll work on that next year; they won't make that same mistake, I'm sure," he said.

Clarke assists student teams, like those from Dillard and Omni, by offering workshops that cover mousetrap car design, bridge building, team building and egg drop designs - all areas of competition for participating students.

Along with engineers from IBM, Pratt & Whitney and CRC Press, Clarke formed the South Florida Industrial Alliance.

He thinks that his involvement in the program has maximized his results. He earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and sits on the outreach board for the Museum of Science and Discovery.

"I want to show the kids that, hey, I'm no different from you. If I can do it, you can do it, too. I was never that 4.0 honor roll student. I was just an average student. But through dedication and determination, I was able to succeed. With the same determination, they can do it, too."